Tuckerfan1053 wrote:That vent opening in the front of the rear wheel on the 'vert picture looks to me like its had some pretty intensive work done on it recently. I'm not sure of how those fenders were originally made (the front are made up of about 5 pieces of metal welded together to make one fender). That might be work that was done on the fender when it was made, and is just now visible, or it could have been done some time later (either repairing damage from when the car rolled or cutting out rust).
Having been around the automotive and aviation industry for almost 30 years, I think that Tucker most likely had access to tool and die making machinery AFTER the "Tin Goose" was completed (I know Since I build Prototype's). Judging by the complexity(of the stampings) , moving into such an enormous facility as the Cicero Ave plant and the talented body knockers he had working for Him, they certainly had made dies for stamping the larger pieces (roof, door sections, doors, inner and outer door skins,..etc..). The Cicero Ave plant as you all know WAS used for the assembly of aircraft engines as well as fuselage parts that required huge 50-100 ton presses to produce these parts. It has been said that Tucker never purchased machinery to actually produce the '48 in large quantities, this most likey does not mean the equipment was not already there, it just was not fully inventoried at the time. Though they had to purchase steel on the open market, it was not hard to produce dies for what he was intending. Look at the Life photos of the car bodies on the assembly line and the patterns on the tables next to 1057. Those could be for anything, but they do show they knew what the were doing (or intended to do). It is possible some of the first few car parts were pieced together, although I think as they progressed, so did the tooling. Even for good Metalcrafter's to produce 57 or so body shells by hand given the time frame they had and to keep consistency, to do so without some kind of tooling would be nearly impossible.
